Tag Archives: Autumn in the Catskills

A cold snap: a chilly morning at 46F by 9am warms up to a high of 57F. Breezy with fast-moving cloud and sunny periods. There still some patches of green hanging on amidst the yellowing and almost bare trees.

The Pakatakan Farmers Market in Halcotsville on Route 30 is extending its Saturday market through the end of November. Today there was a limited edition of what you’ll normally find there, but if you’re looking to stock up on local vegetables, Lucky Dog and Straight Out Of The Ground were present. Madalyn Warren’s famous kimchee is delicious. She also had fresh ginger, heirloom tomatoes, pumpkins, Jerusalem artichokes and other greens. Lucky Dog had all its usual green vegetables and herbs. Owing to the late Summer/warm Autumn combination (yesterday it was 70F), there will be more to sell for the next month. Under the large awning there was local chicken for sale, more vegetables, a bakery, soups, coffee, tea, local cheese and Catskill Funghi. Open 10am-2pm every Saturday from now through November. The final market will be on November 19th but a special holiday market will take place on November 26th. Today was dismally freezing with a biting wind, but it’s worth braving the cold to get such excellent produce. Support your local farmers.

Saturday Cider Pressing: The Hubbell Family Cider Mill on Route 30 in Halcotsville, which has been pressing apples since 1878, opens its doors to the public on October 1st and every Saturday in October. The press will start promptly at **12.30pm***, so please be on time. I will be interviewing Burr Hubbell and Andrew on WIOX Radio on October 3rd at 9am to discuss the history of the Catskills apple and farming in the region. Hubbell Family Farm, 46124 State Highway 30, Margaretville, NY 12455.

***The time for the cider pressing has moved forward to 12.30pm from the originally stated 11am.***

Pony Palooza at Rosemary Farm: A pony party at the horse sanctuary with games, food, music, and ponys. There will be demonstrations with the horses; local vendors with special offerings, pumpkins and corn; horseshoes, coloring and a chance to meet, pet and maybe even hug your favorite RF horse. Tickets are $7.50 in advance, $10 at the door, with limited admission. (Note that the Tack Sale is outside the ticketed area, you may come and shop for free). Rosemary Farm Horse Sanctuary, 1646 Roses Brook Road, South Kortright, NY 13842.

The 13th Annual Lark in the Park run by the Catskill Center, a non-profit devoted to conservation and development in the Catskills, begins on October 1st and runs to October 10th. The event offers hiking, paddling, cycling, fishing, nature walks and lectures as well as cultural and educational events throughout the entire Catskill region.

And, finally, an artist’s reception on October 1st from 1pm to 3pm in Margaretville – see below for details:

Come late August a red leaf or two fell here and there. For the first half of September, there appeared a light dusting of red across the mountains and a lightening, as if the landscape was turning into an antique before our eyes. Mid-September was quite foggy and enigmatic. This week and some of last, individual trees are blushing individually amongst the greens, creating sparse pockets of vivid, fiery red. Overall, fall is happening later than it did last year and you can go to last year’s Daily Catskills in September to judge for yourself. While you’re there, take a look at October too.

What happens when a loyal proponent of beans on toast, the iconic British snack, gets a case of the Mondays. You may also find beans on toast occasionally at Jack’s Place in Arkville. Beans on toast is a great way to accompany a whole day’s worth of reading and transcription. You can find a full examination of beans on toast on this website here. If you happen to wander upstate a bit further, you will find an enormous English section at Wegmans that includes Heinz Baked Beans. You can also find all manner of English food at Jolly’s English Grub on Route 212 near Saugerties.

In some ways, Autumn is a better time for Catskills living. The region relies greatly on tourism because it remains under-developed. In order to keep our waterways clean so that New Yorkers can drink the Catskills water unfiltered, industry is heavily regulated. As a consequence of this, friends and neighbors are never more busy than they are in the summer with events and visitors. The wedding industry is booming; hairdressers, chefs, caterers, make-up artists, photographers, hotels and inns are realizing good trade in this speciality event. Autumn is creeping in and although there are still events during this time, there is a general, collective sigh of relief occurring as the business winds down. Country life remains hard work year-round though. We’re not running through sun-drenched hay fields like its a shampoo commercial, but it will be nice to play catch-up with friends and colleagues in these coming months.

The Hubbell Family Cider Mill on Route 30 in Halcotsville, which has been pressing apples since 1878, opens its doors to the public on October 1st and every Saturday in October. All are invited to come and watch apples being pressed. Details will be released closer to the time. I will be interviewing Burr Hubbell and Andrew on WIOX Radio on October 3rd at 9am to discuss the history of the Catskills apple and farming in the region.

To your average British immigrant fish and chips is the ultimate comfort food and Arkville Bread Breakfast’s version last Saturday was perfectly fried and, although not specified, tasted like haddock that was steamed to perfection in a beer batter. It was a distant memory even at the time because it disappeared down my gullet quicker than you can say pudding. Accompanied by tartar sauce, delicious mushy peas and jacket wedges, it was so delicate it almost slipped through my greasy, quivering fingers. Quite possibly the best fish and chips in the Catskills.

Funny story, actually. I went to Union college in Schenectady New York and became fast friends with a fella who grew up and lived in Margaretville. He used to get the Catskill Mountain News and in those days, much of it was a local and personal column where local correspondents would call people in the community and find out just the social notes. So we sophisticated suburban kids, as I was, we would all be chuckling and having fun, “oh look, Mabel Smith had chicken dinner with so and so”, etc. So he’s telling me a story one day. We’re sophomores in college and I knew that his father was a physician, a doctor. He was telling me about an automobile accident. He said his father is best friends with a truck driver and I said, “what? Stop. What? Your father’s a doctor and his best friend is a truck driver? I’ve got to see this place”.

That was really the beginning of my fascination with the Catskills and the Margaretville area. I grew up in the suburbs of Westchester County in post-World War II prosperity years – the Eisenhower years – really before the world kind of changed in the 1960s. I grew up in the high suburbs in New Rochelle, New York. My father died when I was seven years old. My brothers were ten and eleven and my mother was a widow who had paid off the house. So we grew up in this prosperous, upscale kind of thing. She went back to work as a secretary in a school district, making $7,000 a year, raising three kids on her own, in a world where everything is kind of rarified. It was a big suburban Tudor house. It kind of gives you an outsider’s observational point of view because you’re in the middle of a whole way of life, but you don’t feel like you’re really part of it. For one thing – and this wouldn’t be true for younger people today – but I was the only kid in the class who didn’t have a father. There was no divorce. So I had that outsider perspective.

35˚F at 8am with a shimmering cloud cover this morning that had dulled by the afternoon. Today is the last day of Autumn and the eve of the Winter Solstice, which is officially the first day of winter (tomorrow). Tomorrow morning we will have a new winter sun. The northern hemisphere of the earth will be pointed the farthest away from the sun at 23.5˚ tonight and tomorrow will begin its slow return towards it until the June Solstice of 2015. The ancient tradition of Yule will begin tomorrow with the Solstice and will end on January 1st, 2016.

It’s difficult to decide what was more remarkable about a hike up Indian Head Mountain during hunting season. Would it be the periodic burst of gunfire from the local sportsman’s club every few hundred yards of my 13th peak over 3500 feet, like distant, anonymous cheerleaders? Perhaps it was the burly, camouflaged hunters strolling nonchalantly around the parking area, with loaded weapons over their shoulders, incongruously set against our hippy neighbors in their tie-dye. Possibly it was the roadside pile of dead deer we passed on the journey, but I think it was actually the unseasonal weather: t-shirt warm and humid at 55F by 10am on December 13th. I had no mobile phone service at lunchtime, so I could not tell what exactly the temperature was, but it felt like at least 60F. We’ve had a smattering of snow this year, but thus far that has been all. Last year was a strikingly different story as you can see here from our Daily Catskills picture of the same day. The lower parts of the trail to the summit and back down were wet and there were frequent stream crossings, but they were very low.